Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo all praise for ‘The Forty Rules of Love’

ISLAMABAD: Italy ambassador to Pakistan Stefano Pontecorvo Monday rated the ‘The Forty Rules of Love’ novel – written by Turkish author Elif Shafak – very highly and urged others to read it.

“Finished reading this book. Truly a gorgeous, jewelled luxurious book,” he said.

The envoy added: “The insight into the relationship between Rumi and Shams is inspiring and the prose is exquisite. I will miss reading it.”

The Forty Rules of Love was published in March 2009. It is about Maulana Jalal-Ud-Din, known as Rumi and his spiritual teacher Shams Tabrizi.

This book explains how Shams changed the life of Scholar to a Sufi through love. This books has sold more than 750,000 copies in Turkey and France.

“A novel within a novel, The Forty Rules of Love tells two parallel stories that mirror each other across two very different cultures and seven intervening centuries.”

It starts when a housewife, Ella, gets a book for an appraisal. This book is about thirteenth century poet, Rumi and his spiritual teacher, Shams.

The story presented in Forty Rules Of Love is basically on “love and spirituality that explains what it means to follow your heart.”

The author of the book, Elif Shafak got more popularity among the Arab readers after this novel was translated into Arabic language.